Wisdom's Cost
by kali82
Summary: The lessons than made Anya a good commander were not always easy to learn.


The stench of buring flesh filled her nose. It was sweet and bitter and the fact that it smelled like roasting boar helped to distract her from the pain in her shoulder. Then the hurt and the smell combined in her stomach and she leaned forward, vomiting, gagging and spitting while her bothers cheered and laughed. Even little Tybalt, barely four, pointed and giggled as Anya wiped her mouth angrily.

"Off with you boys," her Uncle Jonathan ordered. He put down the branding poker and gripped Anya's unburnt shoulder. "Don't mind them girl. Everyone takes the mark badly the first time."

He wrapped his hands around her elbows and helped her to her feet.

"Remember how you earned this mark. It was a kill to honour. Those boys laugh now, but they will be puffed up with pride when the tale is told at the spring festival." Uncle Jonathan smiled down at her. "Pride and no little envy. None of them have half your skill. You'll be a commander like your mother, girl. Mark my words."

Anya scrubbed her face with her sleeve to hide the tears in her eyes. "Does Mother know?"

She hated herself for the weakness in her voice. She was still three months shy of her seventh birthday but she was a warrior now, not a child. Warriors were brave and fierce, not crying babies like Tybalt.

"Know that her daughter killed her first Reaper? Of course. I sent news of the battle, and your kill, as soon as the fighting stopped."

"Good." She refused to smile, but there was a warm feeling in her chest.

"Alright, now. You need to get to Healer Shaw to have that seen to. Then we are having a special dinner. Jeremiah is making a cake with blackberry sauce. You'll have the first piece."

Anya clapped her hands. Uncle Jer's cakes were the yummiest.

"Thank you, Uncle Jon."

"Anything for my favourite girl on her special day. Now, off with you."

Anya grinned wide and ran in the direction of camp.

.

* * *

><p>.<p>

The hurt of the broken bone was nothing to the pain Anya felt looking up at her mother's face. Mother's brown eyes were blank, her paint smeared by tears. Even as she bound Anya's wounds and covers her with blankets to ward off chill, Mother seemed to look through her.

Anya knew what Mother was truly seeing. It is the same image that came every time Anya closes her eyes: Tybalt, sturdy ten-year-old Tybalt, twisted and burnt by the Mountain Men's poison cloud. Tybalt, who had cried out for help, for Mother, for death, while Anya and Uncle Jonathan huddled in the safety of the waterfall cave.

"Mother?"

Time trickled by as Mother tucked the blankets firmly around her.

"Mother?" Anya asked again.

"What is it, my daughter?"

"I'm sorry."

Mother's hands stilled. She looked away for a moment and then met Anya's eyes. "You have nothing to be sorry for, my daughter. It was not your poison gas that killed Tybalt."

"I know, but..." Anya protested, but her mother cut her off.

"There is no 'but' here. You did what you were taught to do – run. And when you couldn't run," Mother waved a hand over the leg Anya had broken tumbling down the steep hill beside the waterfall, "you crawled, and you swam, and you survived. You fought for life, my daughter, and that is nothing to apologize for."

"But Tybalt..."

"My son fought for life, too. He fought and he lost." She took Anya's hand. "We will all lose that fight someday, my daughter."

Anya gripped her mother's hand tightly. She pushed down the sobs that tightened her throat. They would weep at the burial, and then they would sing Tybalt's name at the wake. Until then, she would hold her tears close.

.

* * *

><p>.<p>

Lincoln whirled Anya in a wide circle, his hands warm at her waist as he lifted her high. He grinned at her as he lowered her down and spun her under his arm. Her outstretched hand was caught by Simon, who pulled her into the next pattern of the dance. She laughed in exhileration.

"Congratulations, commander," Simon shouted as she left him to partner with her Uncle Jeremiah.

"Yes, my dear, congratualtions," Jeremiah said. "Defensive Commander. It's a wonderful honour."

"Thank you, Uncle," Anya panted. She had been dancing without pause for nearly an hour. "I will try to make you proud."

"We're already proud of you, Anyanka. And the village is in good hands now. Thirsty ones, too, by the look of it," he said, smiling. "Would you care to take a break from dancing to share a drink with Jonathan and me?"

Anya nodded gratefully. "Yes, thank you."

Jeremiah danced them to the edge of the gathering, where Uncle Jonathan sat with the little girl Tris.

The child was looking at the dancers, but her eyes stared through the crowd into the forest beyond. Her parents were out there, taken by Reapers in the raid that had cost the past Defensive Commander his life. Jeremiah had told Anya that the girl cried out for her parents in her sleep and watched the forest hoping that Rosa and Carlisle might be out there, alive. Anya knew better: she prayed that they were dead. Better that than Reaped.

"Hello, Tris." Anya stoked the blond girl's hair as she settled onto the ground beside her.

"Hello, Commander," Tris said, leaning away from Anya's touch. "Uncle Jonathan, I'd like to go to bed now."

Uncle Jonathan smiled sadly at Tris. "Of course, little one. I'll walk with you."

"That's alright." The girl stood and brushed off her trousers. "I can go myself."

"Of course you can, sweetheart. But we left Barnaby Drew in the trunk of a car last night and I, for one, want to read what happens next. Or were you planning to read ahead without me?" Jonathan teased.

Tris rolled her eyes, but she took Jonathan's outstretched hand.

Anya watched them walk off. "She hates me now, doesn't she?"

"Or perhaps she's hurting," Jeremiah suggested.

"No, she blames me for her parents being gone," Anya said. "Maybe she should.

"Tris blames everyone for her parents being gone. She even blames herself. Grief is very messy," he explained. "She needs time, and love."

"She needs her parents," Anya argued. "We should burn those Reapers out."

"They just hide deep in their caves and return to raid more deeply than before," her uncle countered. "Violence creates violence. You know this, Anya. We protect ourselves, we don't attack without reason."

"Well, sometimes I think we should. Look at our enemies. They try to steal our land and our food. Or they burn us with acid. Or they take our people and wear their skins."

"You're confusing two kinds of enemies, Anya," Jeremiah said in his teacher's voice. "There are those who should be given a chance to become allies – like my people. The smelter villages battled you fur people for half a generation, until..."

"You realized that it made more sense to trade goods and work together to defend the lowlands," Anya finished.

"Exactly. So now we all have warm furs and good metal weapons so that we stay warm, hunt better, and can defend against the enemies who can't be reasoned with: the Reapers, the Mountain People."

"I know all this, Uncle Jer," Anya pointed out.

"But the Defensive Commander needs to be reminded. Fighting is your job, but it's not the only way to keep this village safe. Always remember that."

.

* * *

><p>.<p>

Anya considered Lincoln's idea for a long time before agreeing. She kept a close watch on the Sky Children after they had crawled from their crashed ship and started occupying Grounder territory and stealing Grounder food. The Skylings were disorganized and untrained, but also stubborn. They had survived for much longer than anyone expected.

The elders and commanders of the lowland villages had yet to come to a decision on the fate of the Sky Children. Some wanted to leave them untouched, arguing that Reapers, Mountain Men, and the coming winter would take care of the Skylings. Some didn't want to wait that long. Still others suggested that these children of the sky ships should be distributed to all allied villages to share the skills and learning of the sky people.

Anya hadn't decided how she felt about these people who had dropped from the clouds to complicate her life. They wouldn't survive long on their own, she knew that much. That might be for the best. The Skylings had attracted a lot of attention to the lowland, making the Reapers restless and triggering a second acid attack from the Mountain barely three weeks after the late spring gassing.

She also worried that the Sky Children were just the beginning of the problem. These children appeared barely capable of taking care of themselves. It was amusing to Anya, who had been able to feed, clothe, and defend herself before her monthlies started. It was amusing, but it also meant that someone had fed, and clothed, and defended these Skylings. That made Anya wonder where the Sky Childrens' parents were and if they, too, planned to come take Grounder food and Grounder land. If they, too, planned to take Grounder lives.

There were too many questions. Anya knew that she needed answers to these questions. Her greatest skill in battle was not with a blade or spear, it was her ability to see the shape of the fight and use her people's strengths – and her enemies weaknesses – without losing rational herself to battle fever. Going into a fight against people who were either brave but idiotic children or the first wave of an invasion without answers would be a disaster. The uncertainty would gnaw at her, make her second guess her decisions.

Anya had dedicated her life to fighting enemies who stole from and killed her people. She had worked for years to become a warrior, until she began to believe that combat was her natural place. Today, though, she was entering a completely unfamiliar battlefield . Still, she knew that if there was a chance for a solution without fighting, she had to find it. If this meeting went badly and she had to fight, she would do it with a clear mind. She was responsible for the defense of her people and she would defend them in every way she could. And she would claim bloody victory, as she always did.

Anya rode onto the bridge and looked at the small blond woman at the other end. The girl smiled hestitantly and Anya took a moment to hope. If she and this Skyling could find a way to make peace between their peoples, it would be a victory of the bloodless kind. Uncle Jeremiah would be proud.

Anya swung herself down from her horse and walked forward.


End file.
